


Older Than Her Years

by helsinkibaby



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 14:44:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2154492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tasha has always been older than her years....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Older Than Her Years

**Author's Note:**

> For the [](http://writers-choice.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://writers-choice.livejournal.com/)**writers_choice** old challenge

It wasn’t until Tasha came to Earth – more specifically, to Starfleet Academy – that she realised she was old beyond her years.

Oh, she’d known that she had life experiences that other people her age – people who weren’t born on Turkana IV, that is – would only ever experience in their worst nightmares. None of them knew what it was like to run from rape gangs, to go to sleep quite literally not knowing if you’d wake up again. To see your parents die, raise your younger sister as best you can, to plan an escape for you both, only to be told at the last moment that she doesn’t want to escape.

She’d known those things weren’t normal, but she’d thought she’d left them behind her.

Then she’d arrived in San Francisco, with the best and the brightest of her generation, and she realised how old she felt.

More than that, she didn’t have a damn thing in common with any of the other cadets, couldn’t ever imagine fitting in there.

She felt that way until she met Geordi.

Two years her senior, theirs was a forced meeting – he was the engineering genius, she was the struggling first year, a sympathetic professor their matchmaker. She’d gone expecting to find a pain in the ass; instead, she’d found a friend.

In time, she found more than that.

Because Geordi was the first person she met in the Academy who could make her smile, make her laugh, because when he did both, all she wanted to do was join in. Patient and kind, he showed her around, introduced her to people, made her feel like she fitted in, like she belonged.

She still felt old sometimes, but when Geordi slung an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug, she felt young, felt alive.

She can never thank him enough for that.


End file.
